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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Birdiemoore60 on Monday 09 December 24 14:48 GMT (UK)
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Good afternoon,
I am currently working on my grandfathers side of the family.
It seems after the battle of culloden they have an alias surname of Mcgregor but were originally Grqnt. They seem to be the latter until after 1745.
Can someone explain why this would happen.
Donald Grant Alias Mcgregor b 1720 married to Rachel Garrow. I'm intrigued by this ancestor.
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Somebody will probably arrive later on and do a better description that me but here goes:-
The Highlands of Scotland have "Clans", where all the members are related to each other.
The major clans have "Septs" where. I believe, the septs usually have an early ancestor with DNA of a major clan, or in ancient times a group asked a larger clan to protect them and thus those people with that surname became a Sept of a larger clan..
Have a look down this webpage, which shows the relationship of Grant with Gregor (Mc or Mac means "son of")
_https://clangregorsocietyglc.org/page-18104
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Not sure if this fits the direction of the change of name and this is pre-Culloden. After Culloden many laws were brought in against the Scots and of course the infamous anti-Scots verse of the "British" National Anthem.
An act of the Scottish Parliament from 1617 stated:
It was ordained that the name of MacGregor should be altogether abolished, and that the whole persons of that clan should renounce their name and take them some other name, and that they nor none of their posterity should call themselves Gregor or MacGregor under pain of death .... [T]hat if any person or persons of the said clan who have already renounced their names or hereafter shall renounce and change their names; or if any of their children or posterity shall at any time hereafter assume or take to themselves the name of Gregor or MacGregor ... that every such person or persons assuming or taking to themselves the said name ... shall incur the pain of death, which pain shall be executed upon them without favour ....
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.. After Culloden many laws were brought in against the Scots and of course the infamous anti-Scots verse of the "British" National Anthem.
Just as an aside, the anti-Scots verse was never part of the anthem. There's quite a long essay about the origin of this verse but to summarise, it seems to have been made up in about 1836 or 1837 by a magazine editor who claimed something along the lines of it having been "heard by the friend of a friend" (I'm paraphrasing here.) http://www.aforceforgood.org.uk/precious/anthem1 (http://www.aforceforgood.org.uk/precious/anthem1)
Having said all that, the actual anthem is a dreary old Royalist dirge at the best of times
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The name MacGregor was proscribed in the early part of the 17th century, by James VI - it had nothing whatsoever to do with Culloden. Charles II restored the use of the name, but it was once again proscribed by William of Orange in 1693. Grant was one of several Clan names adopted by members of the MacGregor Clan. The name MacGregor was eventually restored in 1784.
Culloden was also nothing to do with "Scotland vs England" it was the culmination of a dynastic struggle between the Catholic Stuarts and the Protestant House of Hanover. (Though the Hanoverian claim to the throne also descended through the Stuart line, a historical fact frequently forgotten.) Culloden is more accurately described as the final full scale battle of the catholic vs protestant struggle which raged throughout the British Isles (just as it did in most of Europe) for the better part of 250 years. Scots and English fought on both sides, though there were only small numbers of English Catholics that rallied to Bonnie Prince Charlie (that being one of the main reasons the '45 failed).
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The name was banned by the Scottish King because the MacGregors had slaughtered a load of Colquhoun women and children. He was so appalled he didn’t want to hear their name used or mentioned again. More detail here:
https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/when-the-name-macgregor-was-banned-for-150-years-605743
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Aliases were not confined to M(ac)Gregors. They seem to have been moderately common in parts of Moray and eastern Inverness-shire, and they may also have occurred in other areas.
See https://www.clan-macpherson.org/museum/documents/alang12.pdf